Babysitters Club go to High School!
by Mobobwe
Summary: The BSC are finally starting high school! But will Claudia get sent back to middle school? How many boys will Stacey have a jolly time with? Will Dawn start a riot? And will Mallory graduate from Geeksville? Only time and this story can tell...
1. Prologue

_Deer Deary Sunday_

_Owe mie lurd! i am sooo eksited! i am feynally gong to hi skool! HI SKULL. Miy frendz ar sooo ekcytid! waht well I du. Will, ferst I mest disiyd un in owtfet. Shud I wer mey pink_

_powlka powka poka pewka doted pehnts ur shood I wer mei beggy mens pents wit oreng stryps on them. dis is a viry beg dellima. enywey I now dat I well bee viry viry kull en hi sckull. so well stacee end de odder mimberz ef de bebysetters klob. Meellery ez bak frum boordeng skull! shee end jesee ar gong too bee en sivint grayd! i well bee en nyns grayd. ee em sooooo ekseetid! Wayt, ded I ryt dat beefur. i du nut kir. dis wuz a viry bed sumor vakayteeon. i wint tooo simer skool agin! bit ee pissed. ee im veery veery veery prowd if meyslef. jenin ez gong too herverd iven tow shee ez ownlee sexten. sheee ez viry smurt. but yoo now what. Sheee kennot draw et al! _

_luv kolodia._

TRANSLATION:

Dear Diary,

Oh, my lord! I am sooo excited. I am finally going to high school. HIGH SCHOOL. My friends are sooo excited What will I do? Well, first I must decide on an outfit. Should I wear my pink polka-dotted pants or should I wear my baggy man's pants with orange stripes on them? This is a very big dilemma. Anyway, I know that I will be very, very cool in high school. So will Stacey and the other members of the baby-sitters Club. Mallory is back from boarding school! She and Jessi are going to be in seventh grade! I will be in ninth grade. I am soooo excited! Wait, did I write that before? I do not care. This was a very bad summer vacation. I went to summer school again! But I passed. I am very, very, very proud of myself. Janine is going to Harvard even though she is only sixteen. She is very smart. But you know what? She cannot draw at all!

Love, Claudia

Hi! My name is Claudia Kishi. I am thirteen years old and in the eighth grade. Well, at least I was. Now I am _finally _fourteen and I am about to start ninth grade. In _high school! _I am very proud of this. Before, I was not a very good student. Once, I even had to repeat seventh grade! But now I am back with my friends in eigth grade. Oops! I mean, we were _going _to ninth grade. Finally! After all those years of eighth grade!

Anyway, I'm getting totally off the subject. Tomorrow, my friends in the Baby-sitters Club (more on that later) were going to… HIGH SCHOOL! Even I had garduated (oops! I mean _graduated_) from eighth grade after passing summer school. I go to summer school nearly every year, since I'm not the world's best student, but I always pass it.

My big sister, Janine, is a genius. She was going to Harvard (and on _scholarship_) even though she's just two years older than me. Janine took college courses last year even though she was still in high school. Janine may be very smart, but I hope I'm never like her. She's always correcting everyone and her best friend is her computer. I, on the other hand, may not do well in school, but at least I'm talented at art. And I'm one of the cool kids in school. I have lots of friends and I dress in a very cool way. Me, and my best friend Stacey were bound to be popular in high school…

_Dear Diary, Sunday_

_Seventh grade! I can't believe I'm finally starting seventh grade TOMORROW! But wait, that's not dibble. Most of my friends in the BSC are going to be freshmen at Stoneybrook High School, while I'm stuck as a seventh-grader. At least Jessi Ramsey, my best friend is going to be in seventh grade too. I'm so glad I'm not deserting her again by going to boarding school…oh my lord! The triplets are going to be in SMS with us! Oh, no. That is so stale. At least they will have to help me baby-sit for all our other siblings._

_I wonder what it will be like to have the BSC with most of the members in high school. Well, the Monday meeting is tomorrow, so we'll see what happens!_

I, Mallory Pike, yawned as I woke up the next day. Then I quickly sat up in bed.

"Oh my gosh!" I blurted out. "Today's the day!" And in fact, it was. It was the day I was starting… seventh grade! I had been stuck in a time warp in which I kept repeating sixth grade before, and I thought I'd never get out. It was an amazing moment when I finally did.

The year before, I had gone to boarding school after Christmas break, but all the dibbly cool girls bullied me and I missed my friends in Stoneybrook Connecticut anyway so I came back.

Today, I brushed my curls and teeth. Then I pulled on a pink ruffly jumper my aunt had given to me. Then I put on a red turtleneck and red tights. I put on my favorite pair of push-down socks with hearts on them and pink Mary-Jane Shoes. I knew I looked so cool!

I headed downstairs, where my father was flipping pancakes. "Mallory!" he exclaimed. "Here you go." He flipped a stack of pancakes onto my plate. I sat down and dug into my plate.

"O, Mallory, o Mallory. Doth thee not know that thou art consuming a calorie? " my sister, Vanessa the Goth stretched in her white, ruffly Victorian dress. Vanessa is ten years old. She shares a bedroom with me and she would be going to fifth grade today. Vanessa is a budding poet. She talks in rhyme for practice all the time (and it gets dibbly annoying). Vanessa spends most of her time writing morbid poetry and crying now. My mom and dad are pretty loose with my siblings, and they let her do whatever she wants. So Vanessa now wears all these tragic-romantic-heroine outfits and rhymes 24/7 and wears twelve earrings. Ha! Mom and Dad didn't even let me get my ears pierced until I was eleven, which was a year ago. I have curly red hair, glasses, braces, freckles and pale skin, none of which I am allowed to do anything about.

"Mallory, Silly-Billy-Goo-Goo!" giggled my little sister, Claire. Of course, she is treated far less severely. She had straight, long, brown hair and _no glasses_. Claire is only six and she's the baby of the family. She gets whatever she wants. Claire is going through a silly stage in which she calls everyone Silly-Billy-Goo-Goo, and she has all these tantrums, but nobody cares.

Claire shares a room with Margo, who is eight. Margo. Don't even talk about tantrums. Margo is the troubled middle child, who is suffering bulimia. It's very traumatic for all of us and we're trying to help her through this difficult time. Now, she was picking at her plate of pancakes, probably planning her next vomiting session.

"I'm going to _fourth grade_." My nine-year-old brother, Nicky announced proudly. "Whatever, Nick, Nick, who makes us feel sick!" taunted Adam. Nicky is nine, and, well, smart. The triplets make fun of him a lot. "Yeah, we're going to _high _school." Byron (who loves food and naked girls) added. The triplets are Adam, Byron and Jordan. They are eleven and they love to tease. They would be in sixth grade, just below me this year. But don't get me wrong! They have _very _different personalities, especially Byron. "Right, Mom?" Jordan asked. "I don't know, hon." Mom said. "I'd call it _junior _high school." "Whatever, Mom." groaned Adam. He picked up his bag to leave. "Our little middle-schoolers." Gushed Mom. "Wait, you have to take a picture."

That's a Pike Family Tradition. We always have to take a picture as we're leaving on the first day of school. Whoever's starting Middle School (or high school when we're older) gets special attention. Last year it was me, only Mom and Dad got into a fight that year over whether they should start using condoms or not, and neither of them would come down and us kids had to do everything by ourselves. Just my luck. I'm telling you, there's an oldest-sibling curse going on in the Pike family.

After the pictures were taken and everything, the Pikes headed off to school (and the parents headed off to the local Catholic church).Vanessa began to walk Claire, Margo and Nicky off to school. I was about to go to SMS by myself, but I was stopped by three crabby-faced boys. "Where do you think you're going, bitch?" asked Adam. "We're coming with you." "Oh, right." I remembered. "Hey, I know Stacey is in SHS now, but let's ask her to come with us." "Okay!" the boys were immediately brightened up. They love Stacey.

Stacey McGill is one of my friends in the Baby-sitters Club, who lives in the house behind us. She came out of the house wearing a _really _dibble outfit. It was a tiny black leather miniskirt, a really low-cut pink top and pink stilettos. Her blond hair was blown super-straight and it framed her pretty blue-eyed face nicely. She looked surprised when she saw us. "Hey, what are you guys doing here?" she asked. "Um, can we walk with you?" I asked. "Oh, sure." She said. "But I want to walk with Claud and all the other members of the Baby-sitters Club, too." I could have sworn that she winked at Adam as we walked down the road.

I guess, by now, I should tell you about the Baby-sitters Club, because it's an important part of my life. All my friends are in it. It's a baby-sitting business full of baby-sitters that happen to be very close friends. All the other members of the BSC, apart from Jessi and me are fourteen and about to start ninth grade. Kristy Thomas is the president. She's outgoing, kind of bossy and very, very opinionated. She is a real character. The club was her idea, so I guess that's why she's the president. She's a great president, because she's bossy and organized. She is the most organized person I know. She has loads of Great Ideas. My friends and I call her the idea machine. Kristy doesn't care much about clothes or boys. She wears her long brown hair simply. To her 'dressing-up' means wearing anything more fancy then her standard 'uniform' of a turtleneck, jeans and sneakers. She plays softball, and she loves it so much that she has her own softball team called Kristy's Krushers. Kristy is rich, although you'd never guess it from the way she dresses. Her stepfather, Watson Brewer is a real live millionaire! Yes, really. Kristy's dad walked out on her family when she was six (what a creep!) shortly after her little brother, David Michael, was born. Then, Mrs. Thomas met Watson and they fell in love and married. Watson moved Kristy, David Michael, their now late collie Louie and her older brothers Sam and Charlie (who are now sixteen and eighteen) into his mansion with his children Karen and Andrew, who are eight and five. What a big family! And as if that weren't enough, the Brewers adopted a then two-year-old Vietnamese orphan called Emily Michelle into their house and then they got a dog called Shannon, and a rat called Emily, and lots of other animals. Kristy's active grandmother, Nannie moved in with them, too. She wouldn't be walking with us, though, because she lives in the ritzy part of town and she has to go on the bus. Abby Stevenson, a fellow BSCer also lives there. Abby loves sports and has lots of long, thick dark curls. She has a twin sister called Anna, who is quiet and plays violin. Abby is outgoing and boisterous, just like Kristy, only she's more easygoing and she loves to make jokes. Although there is sadness in her eyes from when her father died in a car accident when she was nine. Abby and Kristy clash a lot because they both have such big personalities, but underneath that they get along well and they do have a special relationship.

Abby is close with Kristy, but not her _best_ friend. Kristy's best friend, Mary Anne Spier is her opposite. Well, they look alike, with brown hair (although Mary Anne's hair is cut _really _short these days) and brown eyes and they're both short, though Mary Anne has grown a little, unlike her hair. But that's where the similarities end. Mary Anne is shy, sensitive, kind, sweet and romantic- Kristy's opposite. Plus, she has a _boyfriend_! His name is Logan Bruno, and he's very cute and he has the freshest Southern accent. Isn't that just so dibble? Kristy doesn't like boys, so she would _never _have a boyfriend. I guess you could call her a tomboy. Anyway, Mary Anne is the BSC secretary, because she has really neat handwriting. She writes up every single baby-sitting job, and you know what? She's _never _made a mistake! Mary Anne's mom died a long time ago, so her dad became really strict with her. He made her wear little-girl clothes and her. But love blossomed in the air after he remet Sharon Schafer, his high school sweetheart who had just moved back from California after a divorce. Wedding Bells rang and they were married. Now Mary Anne lives in Sharon's three-hundred-year-old farmhouse, which just _might _be haunted. Mr. Spier has really loosened up now. And he's even let her wear more casual-preppy clothes and get a kitten.

Guess what? Sharon Schafer had two kids. And one of them, Dawn Schafer happens to be Mary Anne's best friend! Dawn is _so _fresh (that's a word me and my friends made up. _Fresh, dibble, chilly and distant_ all mean cool. _Dibble_ is also short for 'incredible'. _Stale _is the opposite!). She lived in California for most of her life, and boy is she a California Girl! She's gorgeous with L-O-N-G blond hair, which is so blond it's almost white. Her eyes are sparkly and pale blue. She loves to surf and read ghost stories. She eats health food, like tofu and granola and never eats red meat, so she has a very trim figure. She is very, very passionate about animal rights and the environment. Dawn is easygoing, independent and a real individual. She dresses in a very distant, individualistic style that we call 'California Casual'. Sadly, she and her eleven-year-old brother Jeff recently moved back to California. Mary Anne was depresses- but now, the two of them had moved back over the summer.

Claudia Kishi would _never _eat health food. She loves Mars Bars, Kit-Kats, you name it. We have meetings in her room since she has her own phone line (isn't that so dibbly fresh?) and she hides lots of junk food in her room because her parents don't approve of it, or her Nancy Drew Books… wait! I bet you're imagining Claudia all fat and pimply, right? Wrong! Claudia is beautiful with long, shiny black hair, almond-shaped eyes (she's Japanese-American), a creamy complexion and a figure like a model. I guess I should also mention that Claud is not the world's best speller. She's a terrible student, which is unfortunate because her sister, Janine is a certified genius who is going to Harvard this year, although she's only sixteen. Mr. and Mrs. Kishi are only starting to accept that Claudia is a genius in her own way- an artistic genius! Yep, painting, sculpting, drawing, paper-mache, you name it! Claud is dibbly talented at art, and boy does it show in the way she dresses! She dresses in the most amazing, funky, artistic, creative outfits that other people could never pull off like she does. Today Claudia was wearing pink, over-sized pants with red polka dots on them. They were held up at her chest with black suspenders. Underneath, Claudia wore a white button-up mans shirt and a pink bow tie with pineapples printed on it. One of her earrings was a life-size bat. She had to cock her head to one side, or else her ears would hurt. The other was a big pineapple painted purple and pink, and since Claud has three holes in her ears, which is really chilly, the other earring was a gigantic orange hoop. On her head she wore one of those hats that little kids usually wear. You know, those little baseball caps with the spinning thing on top. Wow. "Claudia, that's _so _chilly!" I told her. Immediately, the triplets cracked up. Claudia frowned. Stacey bit her lip. I frowned, myself. This was not the reaction I was expecting. "It's actually pretty warm, Mal." Claudia said patiently. "No, _chilly_." I explained. "As in, really, really, cool?" "Oh, yeah. That." said Stacey. "Seriously, Mal. That little word we made up is so over."

Stacey McGill is dibbly sophisticated. I think that's because she used to live in New York City- yes, New York! Home of Bloomingdales, Macy's, The Statue of Liberty, The Hard Rock Café and so many other things! Stacey goes there all the time to shop. She is very, very into fashion. She loves shopping and dresses just like a model- and looks like one too. I wish I was as sophisticated as Stacey. She and Claud are best friends, which makes since because they are the too most grown-up members of the BSC. Unlike Claudia, though, Stacey loves math. She is so good at it that she is our treasurer. Both of them are really boy-crazy. But Stacey's life isn't perfect. Her parents are divorced, for example. And, she's got a life-threatening disease called diabetes. And she has to give herself (EW, EW, EW!) insulin shots. But Stacey deals well with it all, and she always looks great. Gosh. If only I was like her.

Next, we stopped off at Mary Anne and Dawn's house. Mary Anne was wearing a neat little plaid kilt and a white button-up shirt. She wore white tights and black Mary Jane shoes- kind of like mine! Dawn sported a really neat baggy t-shirt with the words 'California' written on it. She had on baggy jeans- and a straw hat! How fresh. Jeff, Dawn's little brother came too, because he was now going to be in sixth grade, like the triplets. Jeff Schafer is _so _cute. He has blond hair and an amazing California tan, just like his sister. And a great body, I might add, because of all that surfing he does and his health-food diet. Luckily, the triplets are friends with him, so he comes over to our house all the time. Meanwhile, Dawn lectured Stacey about her skirt.

"Stacey," she said. "Did you know that your skirt was once a cow? So you are wearing a _dead animal_. A slaughtered cow carcass." Stacey rolled her eyes. "I know." "You know? So then why are you wearing it, Stacey?" "Because it looks hot. You wouldn't know that, Miss California Casual." Jeff and the triplets burst out laughing. Dawn was thoroughly annoyed and didn't speak for the rest of the trip.

We stopped at one more house. It was the house of Jessica Ramsey, my best friend. Jessi (which is what we always call her) pirouetted out of the house in a pink tutu and jeans. Yep, that's Jessi. She loves dancing, and she's dibbly talented at it. She takes ballet lessons in Stamford. She even carries herself like a dancer and pulls her hair back the way dancers do. Jessi and I have a lot in common. We both like horse books (especially be Margurite Henry!), we're both the oldest kids in our families, we both think our parents treat us like babies and of course, we both love to baby-sit! But we do have differences. While Jessi's love is dancing, mine is reading and writing. She wants to be a ballerina, while I want to be a children's book writer. She doesn't have glasses or braces, and she has a much smaller family than mine. And she's Protestant. The biggest difference between me and her is that, well… I'm white and Jessi's, well… black. But of course, that doesn't matter to me or anyone else in the BSC! Some people in Stoneybrook were awful to Jessi and her family when they first moved here from New Jersey last year, because of that. Well, as far as me and the BSC are concerned, racism is totally and completely stupid, not to mention dibbly stale.

After about fifteen minutes, we split up. "'Bye guys! Good luck in high school!" I told them. "Uh-uh. See ya." said Stacey. She walked away with Mary Anne, Dawn and Claudia, wiggling her booty.

"Gosh." I said to Jessi. "Stacey sure is sophisticated." "Yeah." She replied "But surely not as sophisticated as me." Jessi went on a dance tour this year over the summer and she visited _eight _countries. One of those countries included Kenya, her native land and I guess it must have rubbed off on her. "Ha-ha. Not you, blackie." Adam teased. "Stacey is-" Byron, Jeff and Jordan snickered and Adam blushed. "Nice." He concluded.

We neared SMS, and went in. Jessi and I lead Jeff and the triplets into the cafeteria, where a pinch-faced woman was handing out these schedules. "Mallory Pike. That's my name!" I told her perkily. The woman remained stone-faced as she handed me my schedule. I read it, then looked over Jessi's.

"Oh my lord!" I exclaimed. "That is so stale!" Jessi looked at me. "What is it, Mal?" "We don't have _any _classes together." Jessi _gasped_. "That is so not dibbly fresh!" "Wait." I pointed out. "We do have the same gym class- but that's all." "Now everyone's going to make fun of my skin color!" Jessi looked close to tears. "It'll be all right." We hugged a long, long hug. After that we parted tearfully. I walked to my homeroom looking down.

_Oh my lord!_

_Justin Price _was in my class! Justin is just about the cutest boy in seventh grade- if not SMS. But then, I noticed, Sandra Hart was there. And she was wearing this little halter top and a miniskirt. Sandra is the most gorgeous girl in the entire _school_, especially now that Stacey and Claudia are gone. Sandra also happens to be the snob of the century. The one boy she could never get is Ben Hobart, who is my sort-of-boyfriend. Right now Ben was wearing an Indiana Jones-type outfit, and telling everyone something about how he knocked up some blond bonzer Sheila in the loo at a football game over the summer in Australia. I used to be the only bonzer Sheila he knew.

A bunch of eighth-graders were jumping up and down in the hallways, screaming; "We rule the school!"

Suddenly, seventh grade didn't seem so exciting anymore.

_Dear Dad,_

_Stoneybrook High School is so great. It has the coolest teachers, the nicest kids and the cutest boys. (Ha-ha). Of course, the kids in New York are so much cooler, but what do you expect of a school in a tiny town like this? Anyway, I have to say I think this will be the best school year ever! I already have tons of new friends, and I am so trying out for the cheerleading squad! Wish me luck!_

_Love Stacey_

High school was totally looking up.

As I walked into SHS with the girls,I was pretty sure I could see a few people giving Claudia strange looks (Who wouldn't?).

The day I found out what classes I was in, I went out and bought a BIG pack of condoms.

Because I am in a class with Sam Thomas. This is all my doing. See, my dad knows Watson ve-ry well. And Watson knows people at SHS. So Watson arranged things for me to be in the junior class for PE and math! I know it's going to be a challenge, but I'm sure I can handle it. It also helped that my math grade was really high (thank you, thank you, don't applaud, just send roses). I do have English with the freshmen, though.

But I'm nervous that I'll get kicked out. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I'm not a junior. Even though I am tall, leggy, gorgeous and blond. I am also super-skinny because of my diabetes, which have done little other than define my maturity and sophistication. (I'm not bragging, people do say I'm sophisticated and pretty). But that didn't mean I had no chance of getting found out. I mean, these things do happen.

Anyway, my friends and I picked up our schedules then and compared them. We had met up with Kristy and Abby by now.

"Oh, my lord. Oh, my LORD! Stace, we only have a few classes together. English. And art, but that's it." said Claudia.

"Oh." I'm sorry about this, but Claudia is not exactly brainy. And I am. Brainy and blond. You can't get much better than that, you know.

"Stacey, Claudia Dawn and I are in the same homeroom." Mary Anne observed. "And Kristy and Abby are together."

"That is so chilly." Abby said happily.

I saw Claudia roll her eyes. Abby and Kristy are not exactly as sophisticated as me, and I'm her best friend.

"But we all have the same English class." Kristy said.

_Oh, no_. I was not looking forward to correcting Claudia's spelling tests. But I quickly pushed that mean little thought away.

I went to homeroom with Dawn, Claud and Mary Anne. I couldn't help letting out a little groan when we were in the classroom.

"What's wrong, Stacey?" Mary Anne asked, looking concerned.

"Look. Alan _Gray _is in our homeroom."

Alan Gray is who some kids call the class clown. He is the most immature, obnoxious boy in our grade. I call him the Dork King of the Ninth Grade.

"Marrrrry Anne! What happened to YOU?!"

Mary Anne ran burst into tears. Maybe Alan had meant her haircut, which he hasn't stopped talking about for months after she got it. Well, I don't think it's that's bad, it looks really, really cute. Or maybe Alan was dissing her outfit, which _was _pretty dorky. I'm sorry, but Mary Anne just isn't as sophisticated as me. And probably, she never will be.

"Alan, you jerk!" Dawn shouted.

"You are _so _immature." Claudia said.

"Oh, Claud, nice outfit!" he said sarcastically.

"Really?" Claudia beamed.

Cary Retlin, Kristy's archrival raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, no." said Dawn. "_You're _in our homeroom?"

Cary raised another eyebrow. "No."

"You're a jerk too!" shouted Dawn.

I cringed. Dawn may be easygoing, but she can also be _so _opinionated. She had seated herself beside Mary Anne and Claudia, but they were kind of embarrassing me, so I decided to sit somewhere else. Unfortunately, the only spare seats left were the chairs between Cokie Mason, another BSC archenemy and Alan Gray, and the chair between Claudia and this dorky girl from SMS called Emily Bernstein. I didn't want to be a dork myself, so I sat between Cokie and Alan. Claud's face fell. I could tell she had been saving this seat for me.

Cokie, who is pretty elegant for a native Stoneybrook-ite, raised _her _eyebrow. Cokie was pretty popular in her old school and I guess she wanted to reprise that role, as she was wearing a pretty grown-up outfit that day- a black sweater, a pink flared mini and those little sneakers with the heels.

"Sick of your baby-sitting friends, Stacey?" she asked, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Well, Dawn and Mary Anne were right there, looking at us. I didn't want to hurt their feelings, but I didn't want to damage my rep either, so I just laughed and flipped by back my hair.

"Right." said Cokie. "You don't know how much _I _get irritated by them. I mean, can you say, dorky?"

Alan, who is pretty popular although he wasn't exactly on good terms with Cokie last year, began singing in a high-pitched voice, "_Say hello to your friends…_"

"Hey! You want to make something of it?" Dawn jumped out of her seat, fists clenched.

Well, there would have been a fight, only that was when the teacher walked in. He gave Dawn a Look that made her sit down, then turned towards the rest of the class.

"Hello, class. I am Mr. Belcher."

_He was sexy!_


	2. Dawn

_Dear Dad and Carol,_

_Greetings from the East Coast! It's nice here, although nothing like California. I guess I'll always be a California girl at heart! _

_Today is the first day of high school, and it's great! Right now I am in homeroom and I just thought I'd right a quick hello to you! Details later._

_Love and Sunshine,_

_Dawn_

I stuffed the letter into my desk and looked back up at the teacher.

"Right." said Mr. Belcher. "Welcome to high school, folks. You're going to love SHS- as long as you stay out of fistfights," he added, glaring at me and Alan.

I ignored that. Instead, I studied him. Mr. Belcher was tall. He had sun-bleached blond hair and blue eyes and was very tan. A bit like me, actually. I wondered if he was from California too.

"Every day has seven periods that last an hour each. The schedule changes every other day. Fourth period is lunch every day. Before lunch, there will be an assembly today."

Yawn. Couldn't this Mr. Belcher talk about anything more interesting?

"As you can see on your schedules, math is always the first class. You will all be in the same math and English classes until the teachers have an idea about your skills and divide you up into groups."

I looked at Claudia. She was biting her lip. I was about to raise my hand to see if we had groups for science or geography, my two favorite subjects of all time, but then Alan Gray shouted out,

"Hey, are you married to Mrs. Belcher?"

"Alan! Sit down." I snapped.

Alan blew a raspberry.

"Very funny, Alan." Mr. Belcher said dryly. "Now, any questions?"

Alan asked if he could belch the tune to _Friends _(I glared at him). Emily Bernstein asked what the school newsletter was called (_The SHS Enquirer_- no, I'm not kidding!). Then we all went to math.

"Isn't Mr. Belcher cool?" Stacey asked dreamily, as me and my BSC friends walked together.

"I know, Stace." I replied. "I bet he's from California."

"Wasn't one of our English teachers called _Mrs. _Belcher?" asked Mary Anne. "The one Alan Gray got detention for throwing the spitball at?"

We all rolled our eyes.  
"I don't think they were married, though." Claudia said. "She's not really that…"

"Cool?" I supplied. I didn't agree. Mrs. Belcher was pretty fresh. She is sturdily built and has very chilly thick-framed black glasses. Of course she was cool. Not to mention, she shared my love and respect for the environment. "Claudia Kishi, how could you say that?"

"Say what?"

"How could you insult one of the smartest, most environmentally-concerned teachers in SMS?"

"Dawn." said Mary Anne.

"Huh?"

"Oh, forget it. You just don't care about conservation, do you? Well, I'm going to show you just how much you should."

With that, I stormed away.


	3. Jessi

_Mal,_

_Hi! How's your day? Mine is fine. Just found out that we've got gym every day- yeah! Assembly is right before gym today and the whole school has it together so we can sit next to each other. _

_Gottta go now, bye._

_Love Jessi_

"Ooh-la-la!"

"It's darkie!"

Those were the words I heard as I entered homeroom. The comments were made by Nan White and a girl called Janet, neither of which I have ever liked.

Why? Why did people say these things to me? Because I'm black. Yes. Really. When me and my family first came to Stoneybrook, people gave us a hard time about that. Then I met Mallory. We instantly became best friends. I joined the BSC with Mal. I adore my friends in the BSC and I know that they couldn't care less whether I'm black, white, purple, green, pink or who knows what. Unfortunately, not everybody in the world feels that way. It's pure prejudice, and it's stale, narrow-minded, racist, intolerant, and just plain stupid.

I turned to face the girls.

"For your information," I said coolly. "my name is Jessi, _not _dark-"  
Janet blinked.

"What?" Janet asked, blinking.

"We were talking to-"

"Me?" a voice from behind me supplied. Slowly, I spun around to see Megan Armstrong. Megan is Korean, but not black like me, so no one could tease her about her color. She was wearing jeans and t-shirt that said 'The Darkness' on it. Oh, well. It must be a new band or something. (I wouldn't know- my passion is ballet rather than keeping up with the rich and famous.)

"The Darkness totally rawk." Megan said, grinning. She stepped into the room and put her backpack down beside me. "Justin it totally cute. Hey, Jessi, I here Mallory is back in SMS?"

Oh. So it _was _a band.

"Yep. She didn't like boarding school as much as she thought she would." I said.

"_Boarding school?"_ gasped Nan. "Oh my- but I didn't think her parents could afford that."

"Mallory," I informed her icily. "got into the school on scholarship."

"Mallory? You mean Spaz Girl?"

I gave Nan a Look. She quickly hung her head and held up a hand.

A few more minutes passed. Janet and Nan stopped teasing me. More kids came in. Finally, our teacher entered the room. She was young and had long blond hair, blue eyes and pale white skin. (I had never seen her before, so I predicted that she was new to the school.)

"Hello, class!" she said brightly. "Welcome to seventh grade. My name is Ms. Gellar. I moved here from Long Island." (so she _was _new.) "Stoneybrook is such a beautiful, wonderful town and I'm excited to be teaching for the great kids in this school. I will be teaching English and History. Most of you will be in one of my classes." (I looked at my schedule- yup, I was in her class for English.) "I am going to call a register now."

She began calling some names. Finally, she got on the Rs.

"Katrina Racker?"

"Here. Please call me Katie."

"Sure. Matthew Ralphson?"

"Yes."

"Jessica Ramsey?"

"Present. Um, please can you call me Jessi?"

I could have _sworn _I saw Ms. Gellar's eyes flash as she looked at me.

"Oh of course. Jessi it is."

Why did I see her pale white skin turn an ever paler shade of white?

The register continued. Ms. Gellar made a few more speeches and she said that we would be having a back-to-school assembly at seventh period. Then she let us go to our classes. I had English right in her class so I stayed there. Mrs. Gellar told us about what we'd be studying this semester. Our current topic would be novels- yea! I love novels especially if they're about horses. Then Ms. Gellar asked us to write quick two-sentence introductions to ourselves to read out to the class. She chose me to read mine first.

"Hi, my name is Jessi." I read. "I am twelve years old and I live with my mother, father, little sister, baby brother and aunt. I like baby-sitting, ballet and horses. I belong to a successful baby-sitting business with my friends called the Baby-sitters Club. I am also a very talented ballerina. I've danced many lead roles. I also happen to be African-American. Before, people like me, with cocoa-colored skin and chocolate brown eyes would not dare to join a ballet. But now, I am one of the few black dancers."

The class was split between applause and snickers. But Ms. Gellar was stone-faced.

"Erm, very nice, Jessi." said Ms. Gellar. "But-"

"We know, you're a ballet dancer, Ramsey." concluded Benny Ott.

I shot him a Look. "For your information, Benny, I am a _ballerina_, _not _a ballet dancer. Ballerinas are female. Ballet _dancers _are male."

"But you _are _male." said Benny.

"Now, now, Benny." said Ms. Gellar. She asked a few more kids to read out their introductions. Then she told us that she would be giving us a big project- we would be writing book reports on two novels. They would be due at the end of this semester. Ms. Gellar passed two books to each of us. I looked at mine- both of them were horse books! I was ecstatic, but then I looked at the two books. One of them was _Black Beauty. _The other one had a cover illustration of an African-American girl beside an apple tree. She was feeding a three-legged horse an apple from the tree. I looked up at Ms. Gellar and narrowed my eyes at her. She looked at me helplessly. And that's when I discovered the awful truth.

Ms. Gellar was prejudiced.


	4. Sam

**Hey everyone thank you soo much for the positive reviews-I really appreciate them!**

Sam

I adore Stacey McGill. I really do. She is sophisticated, smart, gorgeous and super-cool. Who cares if she's only a freshman? She certainly doesn't seem it. Unlike a lot of girls. Say, my sister Kristy. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the big surprise in math that day- Stacey was in my class! I did a double take.

"Stacey, what are you doing here?" I hissed.

"Whatever you think I'm doing here," Stacey said, licking her lips. She sat down on the desk next to me, and I could see that her top was filled out very nicely indeed.

"No, really."

"Watson arranged for me to-"

We had to stop there because the math teacher came in. I'd had him before, he was an old geezer called Mr. Harris. He mumbled a few words at us then threw us our textbooks and wrote a few things up on the board and told us to copy them down. As I glanced around, I could see all my friends grinning at me. Not cheesy grins, like last year. Now that we were sixteen, we no longer had to make fun of each other about girls. We were older. In fact, most of my friends are jealous of me, because I'm rich and I have a hot (but young) girl after me. Some kids say Stacey only likes me because of the whole money thing, but we liked each other way before Watson came into the scene.

"I see some new faces here." said Mr. Harris. "Please introduce yourselves to me."

Well, Stacey turned out to be the only 'new face'.

"The name's Stacey McGill." she said dramatically. Mr. Harris nodded and wrote it down.

"I'll be back in a few minutes. Copy what's on the board." he said.

He then left the classroom, obviously in need of a cigarette.

Stacey crossed her legs and turned towards me.

"So, Sam," she said in a loud voice, so that everybody in the class could hear. "What are you doing this weekend?"

"Um-"

"Meet me outside the caf at lunch." she said in a stage whisper. Everybody in the classroom started clapping. Well, until Mr. Harris came back in. His ciggie break obviously hadn't lasted too long.

"What? What's going on here?" he snapped.

"Oh nothing, Mr. Harris." spoke Stacey.

But I could have sworn she winked at him.


	5. Mary Anne

_Mrs. Bruno_

_Mary Anne Bruno_

_Mary Anne Spier-Bruno_

_Mrs. L. Bruno_

_Mrs. Mary Anne Bruno_

_Mrs. Logan Bruno_

"Oh my _lord_." Claudia said behind me. "Clueless country yokels are _so _over. And haven't you ever heard of the feminist movement?"

I quickly shut my English notebook. "What'd you say, Claud?"

"Nothing." Claudia leaned back in her desk beside Stacey's and yawned, stretching her arms prompting a steely glare from our English teacher, Mr. Bilbo-Tomkins.

We were in English now, and although I typically enjoy school, this class was not one of my favorites. Fortunately, my BSC friends were all in the class. Claudia and Stacey were in front of me, Dawn was sitting next to me and Abby and Kristy were sitting together in front of us.

Mr. Tomkins (that's what we called him for short) had red hair and a freckled complexion, kind of like Mal. He was heavyset with thick black glasses. He was currently discussing what we'd be studying that year. I perked up my ears and tried to listen to what he was saying.

"Oh my lord, you guys!" I whispered to my friends. "We're doing _Shakespeare_. How romantic!" Things like that always make me think of Logan.

"Uh-huh." Kristy, who was sitting next to me smiled and nodded. And Stacey applied lip gloss.

"William Shakespeare was a vegetarian," Dawn pointed out.

"Yeah?" said Kristy.

"Great minds think alike."

Claudia snorted. "Dawn, get a li-"

"_Is that someone chewing gum in my class?_"

The voice made us jump.

"Or should I say, someone having a little _group chat_!"

Mr. Tomkins was standing _right above us_.

I started to shudder. The class was staring at us.

And to my horror, Claudia spit out her gum in shock. Right in Mr. Tomkins' face. _Oh my lord! _

The whole class was laughing by now. How gross. The worst part was that Mr. Tomkins did look kind of funny, grimacing with the gum in the middle of his forehead. And then, I couldn't help it but, a giggle escaped from me.

"You." he said raspily, like the little girl in _The Exorcist_. "You are in after-school detention tomorrow. I want you to report to the office _now_…"

_Now…Now…Now…_

I ran out of the room in tears.

And when I walked into the cafeteria, Logan was leaning against the wall, drawling; 'Ah just done no, Mar-eh Ay-ann. Ah just done no."


End file.
